People don't want to admit that the man that they projected all their hopes and dreams for 8 years thinks tortures are patriots, it causes cognitive dissonance, and this causes people to rationalize what he said, claiming that he misspoke, or that he did not actually say what is on record saying, or that "Obama-Haters" are taking what he said out of context. They lash out at people who question their rationalizations, accusing others of "using Republican Talking Points", or of being right-wing trolls with "Obama Derangement Syndrome".

During the June days all classes and parties had united in the party of Order against the proletarian class as the party of anarchy, of socialism, of communism. They had “saved” society from “the enemies of society.” They had given out the watchwords of the old society, “property, family, religion, order,” to their army as passwords and had proclaimed to the counterrevolutionary crusaders: “In this sign thou shalt conquer!” From that moment, as soon as one of the numerous parties which gathered under this sign against the June insurgents seeks to hold the revolutionary battlefield in its own class interest, it goes down before the cry: “property, family, religion, order.” Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, of the most formal republicanism, of the most shallow democracy, is simultaneously castigated as an “attempt on society” and stigmatized as “socialism.” And finally the high priests of “religion and order” themselves are driven with kicks from their Pythian tripods, hauled out of their beds in the darkness of night, put in prison vans, thrown into dungeons or sent into exile; their temple is razed to the ground, their mouths are sealed, their pens broken, their law torn to pieces in the name of religion, of property, of the family, of order. Bourgeois fanatics for order are shot down on their balconies by mobs of drunken soldiers, their domestic sanctuaries profaned, their houses bombarded for amusement – in the name of property, of the family, of religion, and of order. Finally, the scum of bourgeois society forms the holy phalanx of order and the hero Crapulinski installs himself in the Tuileries as the “savior of society.”

The bolded part seems really familiar... Oh yeah, the wing-nuts denouncing any tiny reform as "communism".

Anyone who is into archeology and linguistics should read it, great book! It talks about the Neolithic and early Bronze Age cultures of the steppes to the north of the Black and Caspian Seas that were the source of the Indo-European languages that now dominate Europe, Northern India, and Iran. Anthony takes archeological data together with linguistic reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language and also anthropological data from the mythologies and cultures of various early Indo-European peoples (like the ancient Vedic Indians, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Celts, and the Scythians) to piece together what these early steppe people were like.

2 bits in the book really stand out to me:

First, he argues that a mixed culture that developed in Romania called the Ustavo Culture spoke the dialect which would eventually become the Germanic languages, including English. The culture that existed there before the steppe people moved in was the great Cucuteni-Tripolye Culture, the creators of the first cities in all of Europe. Interestingly those cities emerged from those people consolidating themselves into walled urban centers in order to fend off raiders from the Steppes. It didn't work, the raiders eventually conquered and assimilated them into the Indo-European culture. The mixed nature of this culture may be the source of the various things that make the Germanic languages different than other Indo-European languages, like the retention of Proto-Indo-European verbal ablaut in the oldest layer of verbs, the so-called "strong" verbs. Sing-sang-sung. Drink-drank-drunk. Drive-Drove-Driven. Shake-shook. Get-got-gotten. Fall-Fell. Fly-flew-flown. Grow-grew-grown. Give-gave-given.

Secondly, the Central Asian Sintashta Culture of 2000 BC fits almost perfectly the society described by the Rig Veda, the Hindu religious text, right down to the details of warrior burials with their horses and chariots.

All the racist, privileged while males who dominate places like Reddit and 4chan are going on about how Brown would not have been shot of he didn't steal cigars, implying it is OK to murder a young black male for a petty crime that probably doesn't even warrant jail time. If Brown were white he would have gotten off with a few hours of community service.

Unless you are Native-American, you are either an immigrant of a descendant of immigrants. All of these "illegal immigrants" are doing the same thing our own ancestors did, looking for a better life and an escape from shitty things going on in their home countries. How many of these GOPs are descendants of Germans who settled in the Midwest following the failed Liberal Revolutions of 1848? Or descendants of Irish people fleeing the Potato Famine?

My own ancestors on my dad's side came here from Norway, escaping poor harvests and a collapse of the cod fisheries of the north Atlantic and hearing that the Red River Valley had the best soil in the world for farming. My ancestors on my mom's side were Prussian German peasants (probably the Germanized descendants of the original Baltic Prussians) who were were stuck in a quasi-fedual situation and wanted a better life.

A large % of these anti-immigrant bigots are of Scots-Irish ancestry, their ancestors didn't give a damn about coming over without notice, heading out to the Appalachian back-country, slaughter Natives, take their land, and settle on said stolen land.

I'm 28 and all most all of my peers DESPISE Hillary. Many of them say that of Hillary is the nominee they will either vote Republican, Green, Independent, or just not vote. The only people I see crowing for Hillary are middle-aged women, Boomers and older Gen-Xers, who want her president because of the symbolism of the first woman president more than anything substantial.

Only 12% of the people who voted were of my Millennial Generation, and turnout was dismal in general. Why? Because the Democratic leadership is either incompetent, compromised by "Third Way" corporate infiltration, or both. There was nothing that really energized the average left-leaning person, and the Dem Establishment is ignoring the issues people, especially my fellow Millennials, find important because they are scared of angering their corporate donors. Things like Net Neutrality, Student Loan forgiveness, Marijuana legalization, long-term unemployment and underemployment, the militarization of the police forces, and privacy. Instead we get meaningless platitudes of "middle class this" and "middle class that".